February 11, 2013 AT 12:00 am

One Million Raspberry Pi’s Later, The Story of How a Mobile Phone Chip Helped Deliver a Vision

Over the past few years, one of the biggest stories in technology has also been one of its smallest: a $35, stripped-down computer by the name of Raspberry Pi.

The project originated in 2006, when a former University of Cambridge professor named Eben Upton and his colleagues noticed a lack of real computer knowledge among incoming computer science students. Figuring the iPhone generation didn’t really have access to the type of tinkerer’s machines of yore like the BBC Micro or Commodore 64, they set out to see if they could create one themselves, all for the price of a text book.